


Brusque Sortie

by joouheika



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 16:24:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joouheika/pseuds/joouheika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There can only be one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brusque Sortie

Levi is gripping her wrist tightly.

With the last of his strength he grips it, as she looks down upon him in his final moments.

This time, he has done his duty well. 

He has done her duty as well.

Eren is safe. The onslaught of titans he could not deal with alone, Levi had assisted him in killing them. And to the last of Eren’s strength, before his form dissolved and he lay bare to whatever assailants that should have him, that remained, ever persistent- Levi had swung in to retrieve him. But in doing so came this cost.

He’s missing an arm now, and his stomach has been cut. Bitten at. Despite that and heavy bleeding, and more than some of his guts falling out already, he’d carried (once more) Eren to safety.

This time Mikasa had not been with him. She and reinforcements had come too late.

She thinks, if she had only been with Corporal Levi then this…

“Don’t cry.”

Levi berates her, if she’d been on the verge she is no longer, her stare a degree from frigid as he looks at her, burning, burning- they’ll burn his body after he is gone. All those years, all that work, all that he’s killed, all that he’s destroyed for the sake of humanity- so one day they can rebuild- will be burned away, nothing but ash in what can be only a few more hours, some minutes.

Or is she underestimating him again?

He sees her mouth clearly, the frown on it he wonders is it Eren’s? Or is Eren’s frown hers? They are like siblings aren’t they? One in the same. And even as he lies here dying, he wonders such a thing, wonders at them as he has for years now. Where did their strength come from? Their will to fight?

Akin to his own.

With years still to go.

He must convince himself he’s found the answer to his questions or die with nothing.

Mikasa moves to wipe the blood Levi has spat up and he doesn’t tell her not to bother. It’s kind of her. She’s always too kind in times least expected, and too harsh in times most expected. She has fought with him, against him, aside him, all for Eren’s sake.

This is the surface.

She has her own desires, her own ambitions, even if she cannot acknowledge them herself. Like Levi has served and followed Erwin from admiration, it had not been admiration alone that drove him to the Commander’s side and kept him there. Levi too as Mikasa to Eren, had seen ‘a plausible reason to live’ when next to this certain person they’d chosen. Possessing no reason before it, it was not a surprise to have the desire to possess it now, to covet it, to finally have what has been missing that made them a person. Where they had lost what was missing to begin with or if they even had it from the start, Levi doesn’t know for himself, but Mikasa knows. Every time she breathes into her red scarf Levi sees it. It and-

Salvation.

Mikasa doesn’t breathe into her scarf now.

There is no saving him.

“Mikasa Ackerman.” 

“Yes, sir.”

“Take my mantle.”

“Sir?”

It feels he might break her wrist, no small feat. 

“After me, you are the strongest. It cannot be anyone else. Take up my purpose. You will be Humanity’s Strongest Soldier. It’s an order.”

Despite that she knows and he knows, still she says- “What about you?”

It’s almost cruel, how she asks this and he stares her down with both accusation and fury, when he sees she makes no move to accept, makes no move to remove his mantle from him. He informs her, more sure of it than anything-

“I will become your strength.”

The lump in Mikasa’s throat, though she’d not acknowledged it the first time is there again, she’ll choke it down then, she’ll swallow it up, anything but it to rise to the surface. Not even when Levi releases her wrist and moves to slide off his blood drenched mantle. If the mantle had not been green but white, as one side of the wings of the Recon Corp’s emblem is, then surely it’d be as red as her scarf.

With swift, strong movements, the abruptness of them the only thing implying how much of a struggle this is for a dying man, he removes her mantle and places his own around her. Fastening it. His voice quieter than before, the only regret that’s there is-

“Ah, my bad. It’s all dirty. You can clean it out though. You’re used to cleaning out tons of blood aren’t you?”

Before lying back down, heavily, almost violently, something else falls out from his gut but she isn’t looking, not as it slides down by her boots as she is still kneeling before him, that lump in her throat finally cannot be ignored, won’t be, it will be a scream later when she pursues the last of the onslaught of titans that have robbed her.

Is the mantle heavy because of the blood? The fabric is older than hers, it’s also smaller- this mantle- yet-

Before Levi can dare close his eyes, Mikasa grips his hands in hers, the only one he has now- that one that had sought to crush her wrist. He stares upon her again, that gaze she always thought so cold it burns. A gaze she felt on her back, at her face, a gaze she saw on Eren at times, before turning to her. But never did he meet Eren’s gaze with it like he did to her.

Her voice does not falter.

She promises to him- swears to him-

“I will carry it all! You, Eren, the entirety of humanity- I am strong. The strongest! Do not worry. Finally, lay your wings to rest Corporal Levi. I will fly in your stead.”

The temperature of his gaze, neither does it falter as his eyes cannot leave her face. Her determined oath, her vindictive stare. It is not by death he will obtain freedom, but by her.

“Fly?” 

Had he been flying?

He realises, sees it now, though she hid it well. Though she probably denied it to herself. He has been flying in her eyes this whole time.

When Mikasa reaches to wipe the blood from his lips again, Levi stops her. Holds the back of her hand there, the one she’d use to clutch his own, almost desperately, accusingly how dare you leave me, he kisses her hand. The already worn knuckles. Holds it- this hand that will kill all the titans he cannot. He can feel how strong it is. She is.

She can do it.

Mikasa will do it.

Kill every last one of them.

(If not he and Eren then she and Eren.)

“Not bad. Fly Mikasa, fly higher than everyone else, fly until you reach the sun. Do not fall until then. There is no one else on this earth, in this retched sky that is stronger than you now.”

Mikasa swallows, to no avail.

These orders are his last.

She pulls her hand away only to salute.

“I will without fail sir.”

A salute she’s sure he saw, because it’s she who closes his eyes.

Mikasa covers Levi with her mantle and rises to her feet.

Humanity’s Strongest Soldier.

He was the only one.

She is the only one.


End file.
